Region of Initiative

SDG contribution

India's financial inclusion network and operations skills giant, Empower Pragati, has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA), with plans to expand skills training aimed at boosting incomes for some two million disadvantaged youth in India by 2020.

Empower Pragati is an India-based private sector social enterprise specializing in livelihood skill development to empower India's disadvantaged youth. The company focuses on meeting the needs of those living in urban and rural poverty and lacking the required education and opportunity. Empower's vocational and skills training programs seek to create sustainable livelihoods for the urban and rural poor and works closely with the National Skills Development Corporation of India (NSDC, a government of India promoted organization) to deliver a range of comprehensive specialized training.

Empower's solutions and services are being delivered across seven states of India. Their value-added delivery services are designed and developed keeping in mind the needs of uneducated, poor and rural people. Since its founding in 2010, Empower Pragati has trained 30,000 people, conducted more than one million days of training, generated more than two million days of employment and US$8 million in revenue.

The commitment with the BCtA will expand the reach of Empower's wide range of training to meet the needs of the growing Indian marketplace. Empower has pledged to promote financial self-sustainability of at least 70 percent of the newly trained candidates by ensuring them placement at par with minimum wages.

Empower has grown to a team of 120 training centers with 300 people who provide specialized management, monitoring, and, active training and counseling with trainees and companies for prospective jobs. Each center trains an average of 300 trainees per year to achieve the company's objective of training two million people. Empower plans to rapidly scale up and setup a total of 750 training centers across India over the next three years.

The company also plans to expand its specialized curriculum and work to pilot training services in other key regions including Africa in the near term.